It's a Quiet Sunday Here

Yesterday was a fun day!  First I ran in another 5k, this time my brother Rick joined me!  Last weekend he competed in a triathlon in Budapest!  I'm so proud of him, he came in 12th in his age category (and this was a huge event with athletes from all over the world!).

The other big event of the day was my daughter, Katherine's homecoming dance.  Her group of  friends gathered at their friend Shirley's house, so I went over there to take pictures of them.  They all looked so cute!   I then had to run off to olive garden to put my name in for a table for 15 at Olive Garden (I've been the chosen one for this fun (haha) job for a few years now!  The wait was 45-50 minutes, but I had one of my favorite magazines, Traditional Home,  to look through, plus I chatted with other people waiting for their tables!  Finally, about 15 minutes before their table was ready, the gang arrived and I was excused from my duties!

Our house is getting close to being an empty nest.  Pretty weird.  It's like it happened in a flash!  (Although time never seemed to be going fast enough when my two youngest, Mark and Katherine, were fighting all the time!).  My son Mark is a freshman at Ohio University, and  my older daughter, Lindsey, has been out of the house for quite awhile (she's 27).  So just Katherine, 17, here now!  I have mixed feelings about it.  Like I said, it just flew by.

But, I have to admit, it's kind of fun to just go out whenever my husband, Bob, and I want to!  Last night around 8:00 pm we decided to just run up to one of our favorite restaurants, Salmon Daves, and get a table at the bar and order appetizers (and I had the yummiest mango and basil martini).

So, what was I saying? Oh yeah, it's quiet here today.  I did make a delicious and easy casserole with some of the leftover spaghettti sauce that I had from a cross country dinner we had for Katherine and her cross country team (that was a loud group!).  So I didn't want the sauce to go to waste since there was so much leftover!

I sauteed onions and mushrooms in olive oil and butter and then added the sauce.  I added garlic salt, italian seasoning, and pepper flakes (I love the added "kick").  To my pot of boiling water I added whatever pasta I had, just to use it up.  I added some lasagna noodles (broken up), and some cute squiggly pasta, and this other favorite of Katherine's.  It's fun to just use whatever you have!

Oh-and I decided to add some heavy cream to the sauce (this is not a diet casserole!).

Then I mixed the cooked noodles with the sauce.  I put a layer of that in a casserole.  Then added lots of mozzerella cheese.  Then I added the rest of the noodle sauce combo.  Then more cheese, italian seasoning, freshly grated parmesano reggiano and popped it in the oven at 350 for about 20-25 minutes.

Soooo good!! I like to make things like this on Sunday for us to eat during the week for lunch.   Plus Bob will bring some to his Mom!

Anyways...I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Jen